


Shells

by still_lycoris



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Episode: s04e11 Orbit, Gen, Self-Harm, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-05
Updated: 2014-01-05
Packaged: 2018-01-07 17:52:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1122676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/still_lycoris/pseuds/still_lycoris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tarrant isn't expecting to be sent to deal with Avon and he isn't expecting what he finds either. Takes place after Season 4 episode Orbit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shells

Tarrant wasn’t expecting Vila to show up at his room.

“Avon’s drunk,” Vila said. From the tone of his voice, he was clearly in a similar state. “You have to go and take care of him.”

“I … what?”

That hadn’t been what Tarrant had expected either.

“You have to go and take care of him,” Vila repeated, leaning heavily against the door frame. “I’m not doing it, not any more. I don’t care. I hope he drinks himself to death. He probably will too, when he starts drinking, he doesn’t stop and he gets stupid and normally I take care of him but I’m not going to any more.”

Tarrant found himself torn between three inpulses; trying to find out what was wrong with Vila, going and taking care of Avon as suggested, or flinging his hands up in despair and ignoring them all. The third was the most tempting but in the end, he sighed and headed to Avon’s room, half-hoping that Vila was making this up and that Avon would just tell him to go away.

For a moment, he thought that Avon wasn’t in the room at all. Certainly he didn’t answer when he knocked. He risked opening the door to be greeted by a dark room and was about to close it again when something moved and he realised that Avon _was_ there. Just … lying on the floor.

“Avon?!”

“Oh. Hello Tarrant.”

Avon sounded lazy, dreamy. More like he had been taking drugs than drinking. Tarrant moved across the room are stared down at him. There was an empty bottle on the table and an empty glass by Avon’s hand. He was tracing his finger over the top of it and staring at the ceiling. He didn’t look at Tarrant.

“What on earth are you doing on the _floor?_ ”

“Why not?” Avon sounded quite reasonable. “What makes the floor different from anywhere else?”

“It’s not so comfortable, for one thing,” Tarrant said. “Get up and go to bed. Have some water first.”

“Giving orders, are you?” Avon asked, making no attempt to get up. “I might not want to obey them.”

“Well, I’m not going to hang around here all night,” Tarrant snapped. “I don’t know why Vila sent me here in the first place.”

“Vila. Ah.”

Avon said it very expressionlessly but Tarrant found himself looking more closely at his face. There was something there, something … wrong. He thought about Vila’s flood of words earlier, thought about the odd exchange on the bridge that had clearly meant more to Dayna and Soolin than it had to him. Something was going on here, something …

“What did you do?”

Perhaps not the most tactful statement but then, Tarrant had never really put much by tact. It usually just muddied the waters.

For a moment, he thought Avon wasn’t going to answer. Then he gave a soft, almost dreamy sigh.

“Do you ever think about how _fragile_ people are, Tarrant?”

“Not really,” Tarrant said, slightly surprised by the apparently lack of connection between Avon’s commet and his own question.

“No, you wouldn’t,” Avon said. He was still staring at the ceiling, as though there was something on it that needed to be constantly watched. “But they are, you know. We’re so _weak_. Don’t you ever touch your own skin and think how easy it is for that skin to get broken? So _thin_ , like paper. So little pressure and it just _splits_.”

Tarrant felt extremely awkward listening to all of this. Avon was clearly a perculiar drunk and Tarrant didn’t know how to handle it at all. He prefered people who got bluff when they were drunk, loud, boistrous people. Even people who got maudlin were better than _this_. What was Avon going on about?

“Yes, well, humans are tougher than you’d think,” he said because it was all he could think of to say. “Or we wouldn’t still be alive, would we?”

“Alive.” Avon snorted. He sat up abruptly, picking up his glass and staring at it. “Living, yes, we keep living, until something snuffs us out. So easy, isn’t it? One shot in the right place, one _blow_ and people just … crumple. And then we’re gone, we’re nothing, we don’t exist any longer.”

“You don’t believe in heaven then?”

He rather regretted asking the moment he had and Avon’s slightly hysterical laughter made him regret it more.

“ _Heaven?_ Afterlife? Of _course_ not. Dreams, sops, to control, to give hope. We crawl through existence and some people pretend there’s a reward or punishment at the end but there’s _nothing_ , there’s just _this_ and it’s so easy to lose _everything!_ ”

“Avon … ” Tarrant began, trying desperately to dredge something out of his brain that would stop this strange rant. Did Vila really normally deal with this? The only think he could really imagine Vila saying to all of this was suggesting that Avon had another drink.

“Oh Tarrant, is this too much for you?” Avon sounded a little crueller now, which was at least slightly more like himself. “Too much thinking? You don’t like to think about mortality, do you, Tarrant? You’d rather pretend that you’re immortal, that we’ll never die, that you’re strong and powerful and nothing will ever snuff you out. But it _will_. Your death is waiting for you, waiting for all of us and these pathetic shells of bodies, they’re practically worthless!”

He sprang to his feet so violently that Tarrant found himself almost stepping back, half-thinking that Avon was about to punch him. Avon stood there for a moment, swaying slightly, his eyes wild now. Abruptly he turned and smashed the glass he was holding against the wall, grinding the shattered pieces tightly into his hand.

“ _Avon!_ ”

“See?” Avon whispered, holding out the bleeding hand. “So fragile. Why weren’t we born with shells, Tarrant? Real armour to protect our fragile little insides?”

Tarrant didn’t answer. He grabbed Avon’s arm, forcing him to hold his hand up, trying to slow the bleeding. He half-dragged Avon to the nearest medi-kit, glad they’d got one in every room.

“What’s _wrong_ with you, Avon?! For God’s sake!”

“Wrong?” Avon sounded tired now. He didn’t resist Tarrant’s rough application of the healing pack. “I’m just reflecting on the fact that we’re all going to die, Tarrant. That there’s nothing but life and that life is fleeting. It makes sense to try and survive, doesn’t it? Can you blame people who do anything they can to survive? Really?”

“I don’t know,” Tarrant said flatly. “I don’t know and I don’t care. Go to bed, Avon. Go to bed and _stop_ thinking.”

Avon didn’t say anything. He didn’t resist when Tarrant pulled him to his feet and over to the bed. He didn’t resist when Tarrant pushed him down onto it either. He lay there silently and only spoke when Tarrant reached the door.

“Did Vila say anything to you?”

“Just that he didn’t want to help you,” Tarrant said, deciding to sum Vila’s unhappy ramble up rather than go into details. “What happened between you two on that shuttle?”

Avon gave a soft sigh.

“Go away, Tarrant. You’re a fool.”

Tarrant ground his teeth, half-tempted to start shouting. He twisted round and saw that Avon had turned his head away, staring at the wall. Was it Tarrant’s imgination or were his shoulders hunched? He wondered how often Avon got drunk like this. He wondered how often Vila had sat with him, comforted him through rambles like this. Did Vila stay? Ought Tarrant stay, no matter what Avon said to him?

“Go, Tarrant.” There was obvious weariness in Avon’s voice now. “I will be all right, I assure you. I need nothing.”

Tarrant left. He closed the door behind him but couldn’t stop himself standing quiet, ear to the door for a moment. There were no further sounds from inside and he hoped that Avon really had settled down to sleep.

“Is he all right?”

He nearly jumped out of his skin. Dayna had sneaked up on him again.

“Drunk and rambling,” he muttered. “How did you know?”

“Found Vila attempting to steal the medicial brandy,” she said with a small, unhappy shrug. “Did Avon talk to you?”

“Avon doesn’t talk to anyone,” Tarrant said irritably. “Not since Cally. You know that.”

“He talked to Vila sometimes,” Dayna said. She sighed. “It’s the worst thing that could have happened, you know.”

“ _What?!_ ” Tarrant demanded. “What _did_ happen?”

Dayna gave him the look she sometimes saved for him, the crushing look that told him she thought he was an utter idiot.

“Tarrant,” she said. “They had to lighten the shuttle. It took time to find that plastic. Why do you _think_ Avon couldn’t find Vila?”

Tarrant opened his mouth to answer defensively, then paused as the puzzle pieces slowly slid together. Vila’s anger. Avon’s bitter ramble about saving your own life at any cost.

“Oh,” he said. “ _Oh_.”

“Idiot,” Dayna said, shaking her head. “And now Vila’s going to be terrified of all of us and Avon will be worse than ever.”

Tarrant thought about Avon’s unpredictability, his anger, his coldness. He tried to imagine Avon even worse than that. 

He thought about Avon’s blood dripping through his fingers. 

“Well,” he said, as practically as he could. “We’ll deal with it. We’ll have to.”

He supposed in some ways, what he’d said was fairly similar to what Avon had said. But then, Avon was generally right about a lot of things.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2013 challenge for 12dayschristmas


End file.
